HumusJob’s appeal for a labor emergency in the fields

di SocialFare

/ NEWS

Published on:
20 April 2020

We point out the appeal of Humus Job, an innovative startup with a social vocation accelerated by SocialFare in 2018/19, which has developed the new job search platform dedicated to agriculture and committed to promoting ethical and regular contracts:

CALL FOR EMPLOYMENT EMERGENCY IN THE AGRICULTURAL FIELDS:

we create an operational and synergistic network to meet the needs of companies!

They teach us compulsory schools that the primary sector is the most marginal, least important in “developed” economies: everything is now mechanized, the industry and the service sectors are the main driving forces of the country.

Still, we find ourselves today not knowing where to find the labor force for our farms. According to what the president of Coldiretti Prandini said, “the blockade of the borders has made 370 thousand foreign workers in the fields less, on which a quarter of the Made in Italy food production depends“.

But this is not an emergency today. For years our campaigns have lost a governance of the supply of labor, leading to the generation of the famous ghettos, which in the words of Minister Bellanova, are “hellish places! Where desperation is mounting, also due to hunger and loneliness, which are full of workers who come from the South of the world and who over the years have been used in our countryside, often in the dark”.

“Now we realize how much WE are in need of immigrants, because the North is suffering!” These words of Minister Bellanova resonate vigorously among those who, for years, have been dealing with issues related to agricultural labor and the labor insertion of migrants.

Numerous actors have been moving on these issues for some time, to try to stem the suffering in the ghettos, to respond to the housing needs of the seasonal workers, to protect the interests of workers and those of companies. Either the state governs these processes, or there is crime. Today, too often, there is no government of the phenomenon. A complex and differentiated phenomenon, but which has highlighted a priority need from many sides: an instrument that connects the supply and demand of agricultural work is essential.

Humus Job has been working for a year and a half to create a job matching platform in agriculture.

We listened to companies, workers, unions and employers’ associations, we tried to respond to everyone’s needs, attempting a mediation that would respond strongly to the needs of the sector.

We were born in one of the provinces with the strongest agricultural vocation in Italy: Cuneo. The Granda Province is famous all over the world for its excellence and its food production. Today it is also the district of Northern Italy affected by the phenomenon of the ghettos of seasonal workers, in the difficult context of Saluzzo and surroundings.

Humus Job communicates job supply and demand efficiently and facilitates regular contracts. We are still in the process of developing the tool, but we are ready to make it available to workers and companies already after Easter.

We have decided to push the accelerator to respond to this emergency, to provide a concrete tool to those who deal with this phenomenon in all parts of Italy.

We don’t think we have a definitive solution, but we believe that, quoting the minister, there is “The need to do a job together, we must be able to give these people the opportunity to work REGULARLY and not to have a deficit of manpower for the next harvesting campaigns ».

The platform is there and there is no shortage of possible workers, not only among migrants. Those who have lost their jobs, the unemployed, those who receive income support, can now be the new agricultural workers. Thanks to the platform, people can be contracted directly online and therefore the movement of workers seeking employment in the countryside can be avoided. Companies can search for labor on the basis of training, experience in the sector and availability.

A verification of workers’ documents is activated and contracts are activated directly online. We ask both parties to keep track of the working days and we will check the regularity of the hiring at the end of the season. Verified companies – i.e. those that will focus on regularity and transparency – will receive an ethical quality label for the management of work resources and will be given positive visibility on social networks and on our website.

We want to encourage work in the countryside, but not just any job, not even in an emergency: we promote ethical and regular contracts, especially today!

However, we believe that the success of an innovative project is based on integration with other services, public and private. To give organic and effective answers there is the need to connect and be available.

This appeal goes in this direction: we have worked on a small piece, now we hope to be able to stimulate a dialogue on possible concrete experiments to provide immediate and shared solutions. They will not be perfect, but they will be operational and available solutions. Activating a large-scale collaboration process seems essential to us and the words of the Minister motivate us to get involved in the first person. Humus teaches us how essential the mixing of elements is to generate new life. We are inspired by this model to try to create networks, connections and new integrated responses.

Let’s join forces: help us spread our platform and write us to collaborate!